


First Snowfall

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Daud survives, Low Chaos, Sad Christmas ceasefires, eggnog and introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The snow is a whisper outside Corvo's windows; it drifts like droplets of water in the Void.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas gift for the lovely [Albinoburrito](http://albinoburrito.tumblr.com/).

The snow is a whisper outside Corvo's windows; it drifts like droplets of water in the Void.

 

"It seems each year passes sooner than the last. They've all started to blur together; so few things really matter anymore." Daud looks over to Corvo and receives a shrug in response. The man can express a myriad of emotions in a lift of his shoulders, but more often than not he chooses to stick with simple disdain. He snorts into his mug. "You agreed to a ceasefire, _Lord Protector_ , but if you're not going to hold up your end of conversation, I'd rather not spend the night talking to myself. I'm not yet _that_ senile."

 

"You'll stay," Corvo says flatly. "Where else do you have to go? Who else would tolerate your presence at this time of year?"

 

Daud lowers the mug wearily. "I don't see people beating _your_ door down to share the seasonal cheer."

 

"That's different; I prefer the solitude. _You_ killed the Empress and almost brought about the downfall of this city.

 

"Yes, thank you, I hadn't forgotten. I'll spend what remains of my life trying to atone for it, though I doubt it'll be enough for you." He sounds more tired than irritated; his anger burnt itself out a while ago, and he makes no effort to rekindle it. Let dead things lie buried. Let them suffocate under the blanket of snow falling gently outside.

 

Corvo shakes his head slowly. "Protect her daughter. It's all I ask."

 

"You still despise me."

 

"Forgiveness will not come easy," Corvo agrees. "But it may come. Someday, perhaps."

 

It's more than he deserves, Daud thinks. Like the Kaldwin crest on his coat, his rooms at the Tower, the trust of the Empress. More than he has any right to, and more than he would have received, had the poor Kaldwin child not begged for an end to the killing. She'd offered a pardon to her mother's murderer, and he had walked unarmed into her throne room and knelt at her feet. There should have been a sword at his throat then. He knew it, _counted_ on it, and could only gape when instead she laid a hand on his shoulder. Told him to rise and asked if she could trust him. If he would help her stop the death.

 

He'd have died for her then. Maybe one day he will.

"The young Empress left me another drawing," he says when the silence starts to tug at his nerves. Quiet men are dangerous; he much prefers them talkative, comfortable. Vulnerable. But Corvo is none of the three. "A whale this time. It was...smiling."

 

"She finds your rooms too dull. Emily is a great believer in the healing power of art. Hers, specifically."

 

"It was wearing a red and white hat, and a scarf of gold tinsel. I've never seen anything like it. What are those tutors of hers _doing_?" He neglects to mention that the picture was touching, in an unfamiliar way. Slid under his door while he slept, just like the last, and the one before that. He has kept each one dutifully, pinning them all to the bare grey stone and silently vowing to gut the first person who comments on them.

 

Nobody has dared yet, and the pictures keep on coming. His walls grow gradually brighter.

 

"You need not keep them if they irritate you," Corvo says. "She forgets soon enough, she'd never notice if you disposed of them."

 

"Thank you, but no. They're not so bad. The girl has talent."

 

"I'll tell her you said that."

 

"Do." She actually values his opinion, he has found. Sometimes she even seems to seek his approval, and he can't work out what to _do_ about that. It makes no sense. No heart is pure enough for that kind of forgiveness. He knows; he's carved out far too many in his time.

 

Corvo returns to a brooding silence, and Daud doesn't bother to protest again. He reaches instead for the pitcher between them, refills his mug with eggnog and takes a large swallow. Too much rum by far; he suspects Corvo might have asked for that. Maybe it dulls the pain of knowing there's nothing he can do about Daud's presence. No doubt he tried, but not hard enough. The Empress has spoken, and the assassin is leashed. How it must _grate_. What is he, if not a walking reminder of Corvo's failure?

 

Daud inhales cinnamon and accepts defeat. "You had the right of it, of course." Corvo looks at him with raised eyebrows and he gestures between them. "There is no one here I could call 'friend', or any who would willingly choose my company tonight. I'm not sure what drove you to invite me here, but I'll thank you for the thought nonetheless."

 

He pushes his empty mug aside and rises slowly. The rum lends his movements a weight they usually lack, but he's always cautious around Corvo. Only one of them still carries the Outsider's favour, and it doesn't pay to move too quickly around a man who thirsts for your blood. He doesn't plan to die before foiling at least one more attempt on the Empress' life; anything else would be wasteful.

 

There is snow in the courtyard outside Corvo's rooms. Daud moves to the window, rests his hands on the sill and fogs the glass with his breath. He has seen many snows in the years he's spent away from Serkonan heat and sunshine. All the difference they ever made was an alteration to plans; more care taken in covering tracks, a greater risk in taking to rooftops. Snow is a hazard and a cloak to hide behind. He used it like any other weapon.

 

It means something different here. Empress Emily has a great many plans for this snow, ones involving ice sculptures and fortresses and castles she'll pretend to assault. Corvo took him aside and made it very clear that they'd be expected to lose, and Daud is resigned to a day spent intentionally mis-throwing snow projectiles and trying to make sure the Empress doesn't lose too many fingers to frostbite.

 

It can't be any harder than keeping the Whalers in line all these years.

 

"I don't forgive you," Corvo says abruptly. Daud glances over his shoulder to see the man still seated, staring into his mug. "And I won't lie to you; I can't imagine a time in which I don't look at you and think about-" his breath hitches, and he shakes his head. "I don't forgive you. But I also don't despise you, however much I did once."

 

"You did spare my life," Daud reminds him, and this time Corvo smiles. The barest twitch of his lips, but it's there and none of it is bitter.

 

"I did. And when _he_ asked me how I could bear to have you here, around Emily, I told him the truth. There was no amount of hatred in my heart that could rival that which you carried for yourself. When I realised that, my own was...void." He pushes his mug back with a careless finger. "And Emily has the right of it; there has been too much killing. Better we find other ways to mend ourselves."

 

"Are there other ways?"

 

"If you don't believe it, why are you here?" The _here_ remains unspecified; it could mean the Tower itself, or just Corvo's rooms within. The reason for the former is a complex mess of _guilt_ and _exhaustion_ and choked-down _hope_ , while the latter...

 

He doesn't know what he's doing here. Only that it helps in ways the Strictures couldn't explain, and the Outsider wouldn't try to. It _helps_.

 

"I believe it," he says at last, and Corvo nods. Satisfied, not smug; whatever his flaws, he never mocks weakness in others. Just one of the things Daud is coming to appreciate about him. "I do believe it," he repeats, for himself and for Corvo. It feels as true as it did the first time.

 

"Then stay a while," Corvo offers; it is both question and prediction. He pushes Daud's chair out with a foot and waits.

 

"Stay where, exactly?" Daud asks, but he's already moving, refilling his mug from the nearly empty pitcher and settling back into place opposite Corvo's indecipherable eyes. Some days they feel like mirrors, and those are the days he keeps his distance, for both their sakes. This is not one of them. "With you?"

 

"We'll see," Corvo says quietly.

 

Outside, the snow begins to fall again.


End file.
